Cloud Security Benefits and the Public Sector

Possibly the greatest benefits of cloud computing for Public Sector concerns are increased levels of efficiency and cost reduction. Cloud negates the need to buy expensive on-prem hardware and maintenance costs also disappear, leaving you to foot the bill for basic office laptops (or desktops). Expensive capital costs are reduced, and you’re no longer wedded to an oppressive hardware life cycle either. Scalability in the cloud is almost infinite meaning that your budget can be deployed on an operational basis and Thomas John’s blog detailing the advantages of embracing the cloud if you are a Public Sector organisation will make good reading if these benefits interest you.

However, there is another serious benefit, that’s sometimes overlooked. I suspect it’s a major reason the UK Government launched the G-Cloud programme in 2012 and the cloud first policy in 2014 to encourage local and central government bodies to adopt cloud-based IT systems and all of the benefits that come with it.

Cloud Systems have Disaster Recovery and Security baked in!

In the cloud, data security is applied across the board, allowing mandated standards and best practice to be automatically applied to all applications and users. Minimum UK Government requirements include encryption of data in transit to Transport Layer Security Version 1.2 (TLS v1.2). G-Cloud also ensures that applications have been tested for common security vulnerabilities, such as those in the top ten Open Web Application Security Project (OWASP) vulnerabilities list. Multi-factor authentication is mandated wherever possible, and best practice patch management will be in place. In other words, it’s seriously secure.

The cost of maintaining that security is taken care of via your subscription, and the prohibitive costs of hiring your own IT Security team are minimized. This enables Public Sector IT departments to double down on implementing Security Policy and ensuring best practice, while the hugely expensive technical heavy lifting is taken care of behind the scenes.

Consider too the UK floods which have been responsible for considerable hardware damage and service outages in recent years. With Cloud computing technology, Disaster Recovery comes as standard and there’s a whole lot less ‘local data’ at risk.

Five9 not only partners with customers to understand a customer’s regional privacy requirements and delivers solutions that comply with regional regulations, we use our extensive network of certified Business Partners to implement Public Sector CCaaS solutions.

You can read more about our Five9 security stance right here, but rest assured that Five9 policies, procedures, and our product features support requirements associated with information security, breach management, content management, data visibility, individual data rights management, data residency, and records management.

So when you decide the time’s right to implement your Customer Contact Center as a Service, feel free to contact the right team. That team is Five9 and our Partners, and we’re looking forward to hearing from you soon.